That Blozzz

One of the things that many people do for enjoyment is dining out. For some it is convenient and others it is just a night out. However, people often times choice a eating establishment because of fancy commercials or because it is promoted as the newest coolest place to eat.

That is not the case for me. I am always looking for the best meal for the best price. I would prefer the local dive to the best chain restaurant  in the world. We have two local diners in our area where you get full for a fraction of the price of any of the fancy places. Recently when my sister and brother in law visited we all wanted to go out to eat. It was decided by vote and I lost so we headed to TGI Fridays. Five us ate a dinner and desert and it came to over $100. My brother in law, my wife, and I all left still hungry. The portions were small and the food was not that impressive.  The service was ok but we felt rushed by the waitress and did not really enjoy the whole experience.

The following night, my wife and I decided where to eat and we all headed to one of the local diners we like to eat. For the same five people, the meal came to $42 with tip and we all left with bellies full and belts loosened. Some of us even had doggy bags to take home. Besides the cheaper price, the food was better tasting and all homemade with huge portions. We was not rushed and we interacted with both the waitress and the rest of the people eating there.

Not only is this a great lesson in economics, we also support the local mom and pop who strive so hard to survive in this world of big chains. Next time you want a good meal, think about my story and find a local diner or dive to sit down relax and have a wonderful meal for a fraction of those big name places.

I spent last weekend getting my garden ready. I got 24 tomato plants in just in time for a heavy frost. I covered them but I think I may have lost 6 of them. I planted three kinds this year because we are just getting into canning and we want to try to make some sauces.

My garden is set up with twenty foot rows and I planted two rows of potatoes, one row of carrots, three rows of corn, one row of onions, and five rows of three different kinds of cucumbers. I also planted six hot pepper plants, six broccoli plants, and few green pepper plants. I am hoping I have luck like last year where things grew like weeds.

I am also putting in a smaller garden with pumpkins and squash. We created a small are and planted some rhubarb roots for next year that we got from our cousins. My wife wants some dill planted so my flower garden will be cut down to have space for the dill.

I did a larger garden this year because whatever we have extras of, the chickens will have a feast. It will cut down on feed and give them something nutritious. I do not use any chemicals and only use compost, manure, and organic fertilizers. I prefer to keep both my family and livestock safe and free of added chemicals.

Anyone else planting a garden this year? Please share with us by leaving a comment or two.

The play Wicked is coming playing in Rochester, NY and my wife and I really wanted to go. My mother in law bought us a gift certificate at the website Exclusive Tickets.com for $150. My wife ordered our tickets about 10 months ago from this site and they cost her $270 with fees. We just got our tickets for June 7th on the mail and they are the worse seats in the balcony and the ticket price on the ticket was $40.50 each.

This site charged over three times the value for what was suppose to be the best seating. They offer no refunds and if the show is canceled, they will refund face value even though they charged three times as much. My wife failed to read the fine print and it is partly her fault for not checking better. However, this company is ripping people off legally.

I highly recommend that people avoid these kinds of sites and only buy your tickets from reputable sites like Ticket Masters. The worse thing is, I found center front stage tickets on eBay for $120. Of course, my wife already bought these tickets so we are stuck with them.

This is just a warning that you should avoid companies like Exclusive Tickets.com and be careful when buying anything like this off the Internet. Research is key!

Anybody else been ripped off by this company?

We decided that it was time to move our four banties from the house to the barn. They just turned three weeks old and they are quite feathered so we decided to put them in a bigger cage in the barn. The kitchen was starting to smell of chickens so we needed to make the move. I placed a 40 watt bulb in a heat lamp because it got down to freezing here last night. They seemed perky today so I guess they will be ok.

My two Araucana hens are still not laying and I am not sure why. It has been a while since they laid an egg and I can see no signs of health issues. I may have to cull them or get rid of them if they keep not laying. The rest of the chickens are doing good and the chicks from this year are still growing quickly.

That is all from the coop. Any stories from your chicken coop?

I mentioned in one of my earlier post that one of the chicks this year has a crossed beak. We have thought of culling it but it seems to eat fine and is growing as good as the rest of the other chicks. It has become super friendly and I have nicknamed it Twisty.

Yesterday, I went out to let out the chicks and Twisty flew at me and landed right on my shoulder. I have never seen a chicken do that and thought it was crazy. Last night when I went out to shut them in for the night, I was bent down to try and get them to all come in and Twisty flew up and landed on my back and ran up and down my back.

Now the little thing is so crazy that it jumps right into the feed can when I walk in the coop. I guess it must have learned that to survive with a disability it must be braver than all the rest of the chickens. My wife and I was laughing last night because we said it is so crazy that none of the others will pick on it because they are scared of it.

Unless the beak becomes a major problem as Twisty grows or it turns out to be a rooster, I believe that Twisty will have a life long home in the family chicken coop.

Other news from the chicken coop:

The four bantam chicks we brought home last week are growing good. They are still in a brooder in our kitchen and they are super active. Every time we do anything in the kitchen, they are right at the little window watching us. They are cute little buggers.

The second batch of Plymouth Rocks we brought home last week (including twisty) have finally fit in with the first batch of chicks and all 36 are growing like weeds. Of course the first batch is growing much faster than the second. Kenny said the first batch was hatched by the moon cycle and old timers say they will grow faster and hardier. I am not sure if that is true but the first batch at the same age was twice the size of the second batch. Kenny hatched a batch for himself at the same time as my second batch and they too are growing slower than the first batch. There may be some truth to the moon thing.

I have two of my older hens who have quit laying. They are my one year old Araucana hens. I can not figure out why they are not laying. It is odd because they both quit about three weeks ago and have not laid an egg since. My five barred Plymouth Rocks are two years old and they are still laying regular. They all seem healthy and the Araucana hens still go into the nesting box but they leave me no egg.

Anyone have any idea what might be wrong?

Well that is all the news right now. Feel free to leave a comment or two to let me know I have live people reading my blog.

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about going to a chicken swap. Yesterday, I went to the same place because they were having a small animal auction. I had thought of selling some of the chicks but my wife did not want to get up too early to get to the auction early enough to register the chicks before the auction.

That was a huge mistake! People are crazy and was paying big prices for chicks. There were about 40 Rhode Island Reds straight run chicks that went through about the same age as my chicks (7 weeks). They sold for between $11 and $16 each. I about fell on the floor. I could have sold all 36 Plymouth Rock chicks I had and made over $400. There were some day old Rhode Island Red chicks that you had to bid on one and buy all of them. They went for $8.00 each for a dozen of them. It was crazy since they were straight run and you can buy the same thing at the feed store for $2.29 each.

They had bunnies go through that went for $16-20 each. They were cute little black and white bunnies but I did not see nothing special that made them worth that. I think they sold about 25 of them at those prices. Everything else went quite high including ducks, pheasants, and turkeys. They had sheep and goats but they did not bring the big prices.

I ended up buying some nesting boxes, a cage, and some chicken wire. I got pretty good deals on them. I was not looking for any new animals at this time but now have an idea to raise a lot more chicks for next years auction. I am also considering going into raising rabbits because of the prices they got.

All in all we got a good idea what people are willing to pay and we had a great day. It gave us some ideas for future farm ventures.

Has any of my readers been to these types of auctions? What kind of prices did you see?

The following is a sponsored review for a hotel booking website.

I was asked to review Destinia and decided to check it out as I am all about saving money. The first thing I looked at was the look and feel of the website. I always am interested in how easy a website is to use. The site was well set up and offers a cool search engine to search for cheap hotels. I decided to check out some of the options in this search engine.

I searched a few major cities of the world and discovered that they do offer a variety of price ranges for hotels around the world. Since I always wanted to visit London, I did a search of London Hotels. While searching, the picture across the screen is a woman walking with a suitcase and it keeps moving. I liked this feature as it was not as many other hotel sites. The results took about three minutes and it came back with eight pages of hotels in the London area. Each listing gave details for the hotel and the price for the set length of stay and the per night charge. They truly have a nice database of hotels.

Since Destinia is a Spanish owned travel agency, all prices reflected are in Euros. I would like to have seen a conversion calculator for other currencies but that is easy to find elsewhere. The prices seem to be very reasonable and they also offer a guarantee that if you find a cheaper price with in 24 hours of your conformation, they will refund the difference. You can not beat that for a deal.

Overall, the site was well designed and it was easy to navigate. The prices seem reasonable for the European market. They offer other features on their site such as travel guides, airline tickets, apartments, and more.

One of the complaints I have is that there are times that you click a link and try to go back to the homepage and you end up on a page with a different language. This is easily fixed by clicking on the symbol of your country. The only other complaint is what I mentioned earlier that I wish that the fees were shown in all different currencies. Besides that, I recommend Destinia as one of the better websites I have found to find a great deal on Cheap Hotels.

Wednesday we brought home the last of the chicks for this year. We added 10 to our 27 already at home. These were three weeks behind the last batch so they are a bit smaller. The night before we brought them home, our cousin found one of the chicks out of the pen and it looked like a Raven or other type bird might had picked it up. It has a small cut on top of its head and our cousin Darlene treated it. It was doing OK when I brought it home.

I went out yesterday and one of the first batch of chicks was pecking at its head and had caused a bigger cut. I watched out big rooster be killed but I have never done it. I could not allow the chick to suffer so I took a sharp sickle and did it in. I have thought of trying to heal it but the cut was deep and I was afraid it would never recover or never be accepted by the group.

Even though I did not like killing it, I know now that I can do it if I have to. I may have to cull another one but I am trying to decide if I should or not. I have one that has a crossed beak but it seems to eat and drink fine and has grown the same as the rest. I am not sure if it will get worse as it grows. If anyone has ever had this problem, please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Will it get worse as it grows? Should I cull it or let it live?

Since I have so many blogs, many friends who read them will ask how I make my blogs successful and my number one answer is doing Search Engine Optimization or SEO. It means preparing your website or blog so that the search engines will pick up your site and show it to the rest of the Internet.

There are times when you need help to complete your SEO work and at that point you want to hire a company that is both knowledgeable and professional.  I have found such a company in SubmitEdge. They offer a full array of services to help improve your rankings and increase your traffic.

SubmitEdge starts with a full line of Link Building Services. From small unique directory submissions to all out full scale work, this company can arrange for your site to be the best it can be. I have been a webmaster for a long time and I was surprised at the extent of services they offer.

Submitting to directories is one best forms of Link Building . They use over 1400 plus different directories to submit sites to. However, that is just the beginning; they also offer article submission and social bookmarking services. All these services are done manually by a staff of 23 well trained employees.

All these services are great if you already have a well designed website with great content. However, what if that is not the case? SubmitEdge goes beyond the normal SEO firm. They offer well designed website made to attract the search engines and generate good traffic. They will create a site or just create search engine friendly content for your existing site. They also offer a proof reading service to improve the content that is already on your site. With all service they offer a full report so their customers know what was done and how.

I could write all day about SubmitEdge. However, they have a great website that explains all their services and has all the information needed to make an informed decision. If you need help for your blog or website, I provided some links for you to check out. Good luck and I hope to see all of you on to of search engine rankings!

Our silly cousins did it again. They hatched 10 Bantam eggs that they got from a guy they know. They have no idea what breeds they are and the have no plan to keep the chickens. Guess who is taking some of them? That’s right, it is me. My sill wife, who was a chicken hater when I first started raising them, has decided she wants four of the smallest ones.

She started by only wanting two but her cousin Darlene suckered her in. She gave told Karen that the four smallest ones are friends and does she really want to separate them. It worked so we will be bringing home 4 more chicks. I still have to pick up my other 10 from Darlene next week. That will make a total of 41 chicks this year. Geez, I must be crazy.

I am still trying to sex the first batch and trying to decide what to do with the roosters. I might raise them for meat. Another options is to take them to a small animal auction we are going to on May 18th. The third options is dropping them off at a local farm or just lets them free range. He takes all you have and lets them have free run of the farm. I will let you all know when I decide.

I would love to hear from other people who raise chickens. Drop in and leave a comment and if you have a blog or website, leave that in the spot on the comment box and I will visit your site.

Thanks to all my readers and I see the traffic increasing each day. I am planning a small give away in the coming weeks so please check back for that.